Bernie Hobbs

Bernie Hobbs (ABC)

Born at the tail end of a large, unwieldy family, Bernie took the fast train to obscurity as a science teacher in the mid 1980s. But 10-weeks annual leave and the chance to live in every small town in Queensland couldn't keep Bernie from following her dream: to become a brilliant medical researcher.

So in 1992, armed with an honours degree and a bad hairdo, she set out to rid the world of all known tropical diseases, starting with dengue fever — well starting and finishing, really.

Where long days and frequent hand-washing failed, a talent for contaminating everything within reach succeeded in convincing Bernie that the greatest contribution she could make to medical research was to get the hell out of it.

Since 1997 she’s been talking and writing about science at the ABC, and done hardly any damage at all.